


Christmas Wish

by torviironside



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-09-05 08:37:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16807201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/torviironside/pseuds/torviironside
Summary: A Winterprincess Christmas short.





	Christmas Wish

**Author's Note:**

> Originally, I whipped this up as a headcanon on tumblr but decided to spend the past couple of hours writing it. Shuri's 25 in this piece. ...I'm just going to say that Shuri is the same age as Letitia in ALL of my fanfics that way it's consistent and I ( hopefully ) don't get the anti-winterprincess/royalwolf spiel.

“Shuri?” T’Challa voices draws her out of her concentration as she arranges and then re-arranges the delicate bulb on the tree. The very last piece of her masterpiece. They’d been surprisingly easy to get ahold of on the internet — these vintage, glass bulbs. She already broke one earlier in the day, unaware that the metal piece fastened to the glass had been coming loose and shattered in pretty red shards at her feet. Picking up the shards had broken and delicately placing them in her palm to avoid cutting herself had been almost heart wrenching. She wasn’t sure why it made her want to cry — a piece of history broken. 

Maybe, in a way, it reminded her of her White Wolf. A war hero called criminal and fugitive of the country he dutifully served and gave his life for. Bucky hadn’t died when he fell from the train, it was true, but she’d seen inside his head when she de-programmed him. He felt like he had. He _wished_ he had.

Every time Hydra had called out The Winter Soldier it felt like dying to him.

“Shuri!” T’Challa’s voice, more insistent this time, startles her and she almost drops the bulb. She catches it with cat-like reflexes and lets out a relieved breath in a soft hiss.

“What?” She snaps, more harshly than she meant to. Guilt rises in her chest but she chases it away. She'd have plenty of time to feel guilty about it later. She hangs the bulb onto a lone branch and bends the edge of the tree branch up ever-so-slightly so it doesn’t slide off.

“The White Wolf has returned.”

Her heart skips a beat. She is glad that he has taken so well to leading the Hatut Zeraze, putting his skills to use to better Wakanda but still she worries for him and there is palpable relief every time he returns to her.

“Tell him to wait in the throne room for me. I’ll be there in a few minutes.” She smooths the skirt of the red dress down, and glimpses down, fighting through the sudden nerves that gripped her. 

Would he like it?

She glimpses around at her work, the tree — soft lights winking at her between the evergreen needles, decorated with ornaments: some Wakandan made ( she was careful who all she let in on her project not wanting word to get around but those she asked were all too happy to aid her ),most were vintage. Mostly glass bulbs and figures with faded paint from the 40’s. One Santa in particular looked as if something — or someone — bit the arm off and she bought it because she thought it added character. 

She’d tucked sprigs of holly in the tree and got cranberry candles to light set on a table she’d pushed back. She wasn’t sure how flammable the evergreen tree was …but she wasn’t taking chances.

If there was a smell of Christmas …she thought she’d nailed it.

Or hoped, rather.

Her kimoyo beads light up and she lets out a soft curse in Wakandan but otherwise ignore the call as she darts out the door and close it behind her, gently, as not to trap the mistletoe in it.

* * *

When she reaches the throne room, she feels her lips pull into an automatic smile as her eyes seek Bucky out. He’s the only one occupying the throne room, peering out the massive window at it’s back, his arms clasped behind his back, his flesh hand wrapped around his vibranium wrist. She closes the distance, her steps quiet — but she knows he can hear them. She learned that his super-soldier hearing could definitely hear her mumble under her breath from the other side of the room after an argument.

She tried to be sly by mumbling Wakandan under her breath but the cheeky bastard countered by _learning_ Wakandan.

“Do you trust me, White Wolf?” Shuri purrs at him as he spins on his heel to face her. She unties the black fabric she’d wound around her wrist as a bracelet and lets it dangle off of her index finger.

Bucky looks at her for a long moment, steel blue gaze flickering between her face and the unoffensive piece of fabric she holds up with an expectant raise of her brows. 

It wasn’t how she normally greeted him when he returned from missions, she knows.

“Uh,” He deliberates and then lets out a breathless sort of giggle, flesh hand rising up to rub the back of his neck as she delightedly watches the myriad of emotions play across his face.

Uncertainty, confusion, surprise, an intense expression that morphs into a sly little grin that causes Shuri to catch her breath and her heart to flutter, unfettered in her ribcage.

She clears her throat and rocks on her heels, pushing some of her braids — that she’d quickly forgotten she’d purposefully aligned to hang over her shoulder — behind her shoulder with her free hand, out of a need to fidget.

“‘course I trust you, doll.” He says it with unfiltered sincerity and Shuri beams at him and rises on her tiptoes.

“Good.” She says as he leans slightly down for her so she can tie the fabric around his head. She takes a step back and squints at him. “Can you see anything? And you better not lie.”

“Can’t see a thing. Promise.” He assures her and satisfied she gives a firm nod of her head — not that he can see it — and takes his flesh and in her own. His fingers close around her’s and Shuri leads him out of the throne room and down the hall.

“Now be careful. There’s a door way,” She warns him turning to face him as she opens the door and pushes it open with her back. She’s jolted forward as his vibranium shoulder hits the door frame. Bucky lets out a grunt and Shuri tries to hide her laughter. “I told you there was a doorway!” She says, voice pitching high in her own defense as he sulks over the threshold. 

Bucky feels Shuri let go of his hand and hears her move around him to close the door. He becomes aware of smells, first. Pugnent evergreen — distinctive and sharp cuts through his senses. Beneath that something undeniably bittersweet. Cranberries? He draws in a deep breath of the scents overwhelming his senses, a reaction to the gentle touch of Shuri’s palm against the small of his back, an acute awareness to her proximity to him as she circles him, the soft cotton of her dress brushing feather light against the back of his flesh hand.

She draws in a breath, sharp, uncertain. Almost as if she’s nervous. He’s hypervigilant, so alert that it’s painful as his other senses work to over compensate for the loss of sight.

“Ok.” Shuri announces, her accented voice lovely and harmonious. “You may remove the blindfold.” He fights his smile as he imagines the elegant wave of her hand that she’d give. She’s using that voice. The voice she uses when she shows him new tech she’s been working on. Professional and yet trembling with unbidden excitement that she’s thinly keeping at bay.

He reaches up to tug the small bow she’d tied the fabric in free and clutches it in his vibranium hand — the whisper of the soft fabric nothing but a brief flutter of pressure against the metal plates — and he looks from Shuri — beautiful and precious to him, nearly vibrating with nervous excitement — to the tall evergreen.

Bucky knows what it is immediately.

He doesn’t say anything — just continues to stare dumbly at the tree, taking in the ribbons, soft and warm lights wrapped around each branch methodically. The Wakandan-made ornaments coupled with glass bulbs and plastic figures, warped in some places and others with faded paint of a bygone era. He recognizes many of them immediately. He ghosts a step closer to examine the Christmas tree, and Shuri begins to point out different ones to him, stating where and who she bought them from.

She tried to stay within the 40’s ..but some are older, he recognizes. Some he can remember helping his younger siblings hang on the tree growing up when they were too short to reach the higher branches.

It grows increasingly hard for him to breathe as he studies them, in turn, loving that each one reminds him of a different point in his life, while hearing that each one has it’s own unique story from Shuri. He especially loved the ones that she sheepishly stated she had to sneak away to the US to get ahold of, scouring antique shop after antique shop.

Bucky swallows thickly, feeling the burn of tears in his eyes and the inevitable spill of them down his cheeks soon after.

He has to process his emotions because they suddenly become overwhelming as he studies the tree she spent so much time and effort on putting up.

Shuri didn’t even celebrate Christmas.

But she did this …all of this _for him_.

Each ornament picked out and hunted down with extreme care was a small talisman of her love for him.

“This one’s my favorite.” She brushes past, between him and the tree and bends down to pull it gently from the tree. She turns around, holding the hook between her finger and thumb, whilst cupping her palm in case the ornament fell. It was a faded plastic Santa — an old mold where the machine didn’t completely cut away the crowning — and it was missing an arm.

“I don’t know his story and the woman who sold him to me tried to talk me out of it because his paint was faded and he’s missing an arm but I told her it adds character. It reminds me of you.”

Bucky laughs and shakes his head, hand lifting to swipe the tears away. 

“Faded and old?”

“No.” She chides him with a click of her tongue against the roof of her mouth as she returns the Santa to it’s place. “It reminds me of you because it’s endured.” She tells him and shyly peers up at him through her lashes. “So? How’d I do?” She asks and there’s so much hope in her eyes that he’ll like it that he feels overwhelmed again.

God. What did he do to deserve Shuri?

Bucky’s afraid he couldn’t find his voice if he wanted to so instead he closes the distance between them and pulls her into a hug. She lets out a soft noise of surprise as he peppers her cheek with kisses and presses his lips to her neck as he feels her fingers draw through his hair.

He draws back slightly to gently cup her face betwixt his mismatched hands.

_I love it_.

Still can’t find his voice.

Shuri’s hand lifts to rest over his flesh hand, her thumb brushing against his knuckles as she tilts her head to press a kiss to the inside of his wrist as he struggles.

Bucky doesn’t know how to express to her just how much it means to him. How each detail, carefully and lovingly planned out in that beautiful mind of her’s meant more than anything. He couldn’t find the words to express that no one had ever done something so incredibly thoughtful for him.

“It’s ok.” She assures him, squeezing his hand. “You don’t have to say anything. I can tell by your eyes.” She whispers and he leans down to minimize the distance between their lips until they collide and his vibranium arm falls from her face to wind gently around her waist — always aware and always careful not to hurt her.

“Merry Christmas, James.” She whispers, breathlessly against his lips.

“Thank you, Shuri.” He murmurs, smiling as she beams proudly at him.

**Author's Note:**

> You can follow me on tumblr which is a slew of everything I'm trash for: http://fallofatlas.tumblr.com/


End file.
